good-bye. it gave me a perspective on the value of community and the value of friendships and value of stab and it all those good things that i now have having finished the trip. but i'm glad i did the journey. because i'm one of those people that i think in my earlier years in twenties and thirties i needed to get out and i needed to travel. i felt quite nomadic. i had the best of both worlds and now i really appreciate not traveling. would i do this again? it's an impossible question to answer of course because what i know now in terms of having gone around the world and having been lucky enough to have done a trip like this -- it's not for everyone of course but i feel quite privileged to have seen the world from a slow pace that human power travel biking, roller blading, kayaking,

this -- you're not in a motor vehicle or a train where you don't see anything. that's a lovely slow pace where you get to meet people and get to interact with people at a ground level. you get to stay in their homes and get to understand cultures from the inside out. so, i do feel like i had this bird's eye view of the world which i didn't before growing up england where i was dying to get out and i felt claustrophobic. i needed to get my head around on what this planet we live on and what we need to do to get along and to overcome all these big problems. i feel like i have some answers now that i didn't before. and i feel like the world has been sort of scaled down in many ways to that little boat that i spent so many months in my life on. when you're out on an ocean, on a small boat, you have to adapt

to the circumstances. you have to live within your -- within finite means. you have to think about conservation of your food and water and your power and you have to fix stuff. and i think that's something which now i'm -- when i go into schools and talk to young people i like to share that message that the planet is like a little boat on theocean and you have to think about doing your bit. everyone has do their bit and maybe live more simply for us all to have enough and there is enough to go around. so that's one thing that i feel i'm very lucky to be able to share. and of course the book is very much a part of that vehicle to be able to get some of these -- it's not just an adventure story basically. i was out there trying to find some answers to questions that burned inside me and the book allows me to get some of those

learning lessons out there. >> we continue the c-span city's tour with a visit of the helen hunt jackson exhibit. she was a novelist who wrote most in colorado springs. >> helen hunt jackson was one of the earliest residents of colorado springs. they came in 1873 as a prescription for on going health troubles she was suffering. but by the time she arrived here she was already a famous author. so she made quite a splash in colorado springs. her first book of poems versus was published in 1870. she published in addition to writing books she published in magazines like the century atlantic monthly. this is her writing room, her study.

it's her personal study. we have some of her books throughout the three rooms of the home. what we love about having her house in the museum is that we can interpret her life based on these objects. you can see that helen loved beautiful things. she is a victorian woman of her era. and so she has these beautiful water color paintings done by alice stewart hill who was a friend of hers here in colorado springs and has her own cabinet of curiosity if you will. she has put together an eclectic set of artifacts based on travels and interests and of the natural world. we know she loved nature. in fact, she found god in nature. she -- instead of attending church on sunday would hike up

cheyenne mountain and loved the falls there. she surrounds herself with beautiful things from nature. if helen were alive she would have plants and flowers. in the museum we don't have those today. this shelf covered in pinecones is actually a fungus that grows on the side of trees and she's had it mounted to wooden plates so that she can display some of her specimens flora and fauna on there. this object is a whale's inner ear and it's made into a purse or a little bag she could put things in. and again, that's an extraordinary example of her love of the natural world. we know that she never stopped reading. she was always collecting and reading and investigating new

topics. this stairway is believed that this was carved who was one of the first millionaires but she called it her starry starry staircase because they were all carved into the sides of the wooden staircase going up. in 1879 a shift came about and interesting and important turning point in helen jackson's career took place. she was in boston. she didn't stop traveling when she moved to colorado springs. it was really just her home base. she was in boston where she attended a program by a chief named standing bear and his interpreter a woman named . /* -- they talked about how they had been removed from their home lands in the dakota territories

and forced down in the indian territories. a long journey where people young and old died from the trip being exposed to weather and malnutrition. and he was standing there on a national tour trying to bring attention to this mistreatment. helen jackson was present and something about this case about the story it and story about bright eyes swayed her and she began to become involved and she began to advocate and joined an organization to try to shine a light on the mistreatment of the indians. for the first time in her life she became a woman with a cause. she set her sights on writing a

book that would change america's notion of 19th century treatment of american indians. she set to work and in a matter of months she published -- or she wrote "century of dishonor" which was published in 1881 and a record not of the entire history of american indian but of seven tribes. one of which was the pong ka. she meant to shine light on agreements that were forgotten and she to bring attention to wake americans up if you will to what was going on literally in their backyards. she -- it is said that she delivered a copy of century of dishonor to every member of congress at her own expense. but she was incredibly disappointed when the book only

sold about 2000 copies. she said the only people who read it didn't need to. they were all people that were interested in the cause and in the movement. we'll now go into the room called the parlor. and this room too both reflects her eclectic style but also the period. she has this sculpture over the mantle is a beautiful portrait of her beloved son who passed away when he was nine years old this is one of my favorite parts of the home and it is a little library called kissing corner by

the jackson children, and the book shelves are filled with we know that she had about a thousand books in this section alone. they were filled with great lifts of literature and studies and scientific publications. and also interestingly enough one author describes how helen thought to contact her in the after life. we don't know that actually happened. it won't be surprising because that was a popular phenomenon among victorian era women in the latter part of the 19th century. but her library is remarkable. there are books by her father.

she was going to write a popular novel. a popular novel that would go to great lengths to accomplish the same means. and so, she placed her novel in southern california and it's called "ramona" and it was wildly popular. it was the best seller. sold 20,000 copies after its publication. but a lot of people. literary scholars a wonderful